E3 2003: MechMinds

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Play as a robot in this Freelancer style action/RPG set on an abandoned military testing planet.

By Dan Adams

In the future, people are smart. They're smart enough to expand across the galaxy and colonize new planets. They're also smart enough to create a race of machines that not only can learn, but learns to want to survive, much like your Terminator/Matrix theme. The people were not smart enough to turn the machines off before they left however. So now this time, the machines aren't actually attacking humans, they're attacking each other. Looks as though the silly people made the machines just as petty as us humans. So goes the story behind another of 1C's many games, MechMinds.

The planet and base that these machines were created upon was abandoned by the humans that built it leaving the machines to fend for themselves, multiplying and getting smarter with no controlling sack of meat to ruin their fun. The base was originally designed as a testing facility where one computer named "Super" was supposed to create more efficient gliders (the combat vehicle of choice). The MechMinds are pretty much robots used to actually test the gliders and perfect them. The rub is that different MechMinds have different visions of where the future of the gliders should lay and have broken up into strange sorts of political factions. The last piece of the equation comes in the form of the Observer. This entity was created to watch over the MechMinds and influence the course of events. The Observer and Super do not get along terribly well.

You will play one of these mechanical entities in an action/RPG type of adventure and will have the chance to pick a side to influence the future of MechMind creations. Making your travel easier is the Glider that you'll be able to fly around the different zones of the world. Each of these zones has its own social and trade relationships with each other as well as having their own groups and sub-factions that you can join and interact with.

In the video of Mechminds shown at E3, there was really very little concrete gameplay shown, but it looks as though there will be plenty of enemies to shoot down and lots of maneuverability sliding the game more towards the action part of action/RPG. The RPG portion should come in upgrades to your character through new parts to your glider such as new weapons and the like (or a new glider altogether) as well as the chance to take on quests, explore the world, and trade with other MechMinds. It actually sounds a lot like Freelancer in these aspects.

Aside from the single player storyline and gameplay, there will also be multiplayer added in for effect as well although there's no word on what exactly that will entail.

Look for more info on this later in the year as it's release date is 2003, although that could very well end up being just for Europe with a later release in North America.